John wrote to show that Christ was
the Messiah, the Divine Son of God.

When
the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves
got into boats and came to Capernaum looking for Jesus. And when they
found him across the sea they said to him, "Rabbi, when did you get here?"
Jesus answered them and said, "Amen, amen, I say to you, you are looking for me
not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled.
Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal
life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him the Father, God, has
set his seal." So they said to him, "What can we do to accomplish the
works of God." Jesus answered and said to them, "This is the work of God,
that you believe in the one he sent." So they said to "What sign can you
do, that we may see and believe in you? What can you do? Our
ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written: He gave them bread fromheaven to eat." So Jesus said to them, "Amen, Amen, I say to you,
it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true
bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from
heaven and gives life to the world."

So
they said to him, "Sir, give us this bread always." Jesus said to them, "I
am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever
believes in me will never thirst"

Many
secular philosophers in the last century often spoke of the difficulty of “world
weariness.” World weariness is a smothering sense of apparently insoluble
troubles. What can one man do? To whom can we turn? Curiously, good news
rarely makes media headlines. We have, rather, a kind of fascination with
horror and there is never a shortage of awful news to report. Throughout
history this was always true, but with the exponential improvements in
communication technology, the bombardment of bad news has become relentless.

There
is another kind of world weariness we can experience. It is the weariness that
comes from the preponderance of false information in the media. Our habitual
suspicion when public figures speak exposes a widespread and disconcerting
crises of truth. But can we handle the truth?

We
all have become accustomed to politicians gaming the electorate, packaging a set
of policies to appeal to this group, and packaging contrary policies for another
group of votes. Small “focus groups” are scientifically consulted for the
purpose. The stated policies of politicians can vary by region, and when taken
together often are contradictory and mendacious. As a consequence, to keep
voters happy, there is an increasing demand for economic entitlements paid by
other taxpayers. In the United States and many parts of the world, the current
immense government debt, the result of massive spending to satisfy disparate
political constituencies, now threatens to crush the financial future of the
younger generation. With older generations providing the game plan, in the
main, younger generations similarly demand entitlements themselves.

Focus
groups can be found in the Gospel, but only for our sake. Christ is not a
politician. He is always “master of the moment” and speaks the truth without
equivocation, without nuance, regardless of focus group response: “You brood of
vipers!” “A man cannot be a prophet in his hometown.” “Father forgive them for
they know not what they do.” Hence, the largest focus group in the Gospel
gathered to demand of Pilate, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” In the art of
practical politics, Christ was a failure.

In
Sunday’s Gospel, Christ again refuses to parse words for the sake of popularity
and favor. After the miraculous multiplication of loaves where Christ feeds the
multitudes through the instrumentality of His disciples, Christ attempts to
retire to a lonely place for prayer and relaxation. The crowds follow Him,
thinking of Him as the Bread King with an endless supply of food stamps. But
Christ uses the encounter to announce the most profound of gifts He was to
confer upon us. In what is now called His “Eucharistic Discourse” Jesus without
ambiguity reveals, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never
hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.” Christ the bread of
life.

In
subsequent Sunday Gospel readings, we learn the rest of the story. The focus
group is unimpressed. With minds closed to the higher gifts, they begin to
murmur among themselves and depart from Him, ”How can this man give us his flesh
to eat?” A politician would have heard the murmuring and would have adjusted
the message accordingly with “nuances” appealing to their expectation. But
Christ, the man of truth, refuses to yield. The result? Except for the Twelve
(who, still without understanding, remained loyal), the Lord loses His entire
constituency. In politics, this focus group event would be called a “gaffe.”

It
is all too easy to imagine ourselves, inserted into the pages of the Gospel,
numbered among the skeptics of Christ. But today our perspective ought to
differ from theirs. The Gospel pages have been gathered together by the church
and stapled together as books for us. Through the church, we have received the
fullness of the teachings of Christ. Hence, from our perspective a perspective
that includes the events of the Last Supper, Good Friday and the Resurrection,
these words of Christ are among the most poignant and beautiful we can possible
hear this side of eternity: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven;
whoever eats this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give is my
flesh for the life of the world.” To souls hungry to live life in abundance in
Christ, the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist is the greatest entitlement
of all.